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"My First Mister"
(Reviewed September 26, 2001)
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Why on earth would comic genius Albert Brooks, the brilliant writer/director/star behind such masterpieces as "Modern Romance" and "Lost in America," sign on to costar in this absolutely worthless, thoroughly stupid and offensively sappy movie? Are good gigs really that hard to come by these days? Try as he might to save this turkey with his always amusing deadpan delivery, even Brooks can't rise above "My First Mister"'s relentlessly moronic script.
Imagine if a bunch of completely humorless no-talents at the Lifetime cable network ("Television for Women"--JEEEZUS!) got together and decided to remake "Harold and Maude," except flipping the genders and not bothering to include any cleverness, believable characters or good songs. Next, imagine the horrible, horrible result being about a million times worse than you are thinking. Now imagine it is even worse than that. At this point, you almost have an idea of how monumentally unwatchable "My First Mister" is.
Leelee Sobieski is a 17-year-old Goth girl obsessed with death, cutting herself, and writing poetry that's almost as earnestly awful as Sobieski's real-life writing. (Anybody hear her on Leno reading her howlingly embarrassing original ode to the New York Twin Towers disaster? Douche chills to the max, baby!) Didn't Goth go out at least five years ago? Hasn't even "Saturday Night Live" stopped trying to milk laughs out of "Goth Talk?" And could there be a less convincing actress on God's green earth to play the role of an ugly-duckling never-been-kissed outcast? Even uglied-up, Leelee still has the face and body of an Estee Lauder model, except with D-cups, which is not exactly a bad thing.
Albert Brooks plays her sweetly crotchety boss at a men's clothing store where Leelee somehow manages to get a stock-clerk job despite such minor things as her wholly inappropriate outfit, tattoos and piercings, her bad attitude, and foul mouth. Oh, yeah, I can really see a chick like this getting hired an at upscale men's haberdashery by an anal-retentive. Leeleee proceeds to engage in such sitcommish hijinks such as creating an S&M window display while nobody's looking. Guffawing yet?
What follows is the most unsexy, unamusing, unfunny and unconvincing May-December romance in cinema history. See Leelee take a very uncomforable Albert to a groovy hipster coffee bar! See Leelee make Albert lie on a grave to feel the energy of dead people! See Leelee convince Albert to get a tattoo--almost! Ha-ha-ha, the belly laughs just never end.
Later, a preposterously contrived scene leads to a plot development that is so mawkishly ridiculous it ratchets the movie's stench up to a whole new level. Incredibly, this is followed by a further contrivance that is even dumber. I kid thee not.
I love Albert Brooks, and I usually love looking at Leelee Sobieski. But boy, did I ever hate this movie.
Back Row Grade: F
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